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The following first appeared in the private email list IVy-subscribers,
which was available to all those who subscribed to the
printed magazine, International Viewpoints.
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The cat's out of the bag; let's invite her to stay
by Phil Spickler
31 Jul 00
Greetings to those who know, and a sincere and cheery greeting to those who
don't know! and let us give thanks that these two possibilities do and shall
continue to exist --
In our last bedtime story, as you may remember, one of the most
closely-guarded secrets to be found in the Church of Scientology, as well as
in other both historic and present wisdom schools, is that underneath it all,
the guy really isn't anybody or anything. Other synonyms for this would be
"no one," the "non-I," and (wow, and not least) THE TRUTH.
You well may ask, why is this secret so closely guarded? Why are these
ideas rarely, if not never, mentioned in or near the C of S and other wisdom
businesses? Well, this question possibly has more than one answer. First
and foremost is a business consideration: namely, if you're going to keep
your customers and have repeat business, as well as new business, it's best
if they keep reaching for something that is not ultimately attainable. This
is not to say that they don't get any help and don't get patched up and don't
get lots of nifty and improved understandings about things, but once you get
them hooked on the idea of achieving something that can't be achieved, you
can generally count on keeping their business in this endeavor for many years
to come.
Another name for this, of course, is the "endless case" phenomenon,
and this comes about by attempting to perfect something called the "self" or
the "I" or the sovereign being or any of a number of names that it goes
under, which is in truth imperfectible and by its very nature and creation
contains a big lie, and is also a survival entity, which in itself is a
continuation of what we call "case."
Nevertheless, when you sell the guy on the idea that he's going to
get this poor excuse for a self into some magnificently stable case-free
immortal condition, he's now a permanent customer.
As you know, opposites tend to arise together, and just as there is
an "I" there is also a "non-I." And the neat thing about the non-I is that
not only is it not an "I," it has a non-case and is delightfully
non-existent. So if you want to get rid of what you think of as your case,
simply stop asserting "I," and simply assume the beingness of the non-I. And
non-I's don't have a lot of things, including cases, 'cause let's face it,
there's nobody there to have a case.
Now at the very least you want to regain the ability to be a non-I or
an I at will, while at the same time retaining the understanding that you
aren't either one of them, but they're both useful, even fun. So yes, the
closely-guarded secret is that as long as someone is being someone, they're
being the kind of someone that can have a case, and as long as they're being
that kind of someone, if they spend the next 10 trillion years trying to get
rid of all their case and perfect this someone, they will not do it.
And so another part of the closely-guarded secret is that a certain
number of people, while in the course of auditing or some other spiritual
discipline that permits of some real looking, may suddenly or gradiently
as-is or cause to vanish that which they truly consider to be themselves.
Yes, folks who would have sworn on a giant stack of Bibles that they are a
spiritual being or a self, immortal, and all kinds of other things that they
would attest to, suddenly find out that they aren't anything or anyone; and
that at this point, by definition, they have just died and are now dead.
This is not what they were paying $1000 an hour to get. Mr. Klotz
from Shropshire was hoping for other, more simple, more mundane, results:
like never to react to his mother-in-law's voice again, or always find a
parking place whenever he took the family saloon out for a drive; or he
wanted to be able to look through walls so that he could see his young
sister-in-law undress, etc. etc. etc. Or he wanted to double sales in his
business effortlessly -- yes, he was hoping for these or other so-called OT
abilities.
But now his body is sitting in the auditing chair or in the ashram or
in the zendo, and he has turned into nothing or no one. This is not a result
you will see broadly advertised by most of the wisdom trips, nor is it one
that most of their customers truly and honestly seek. And what Mr. Klotz was
seeking was simply to be what he thinks of as himself, but now have it
immortalized.
Well, so there it is -- when you get rid of your whole case, one of
the fringe benefits (or shocks) that goes with that is getting rid of you:
the only thing left that could have such a case. This is horribly simple,
ain't it? So: no you, no case.
You might think that this information is going to deal a death blow to
all the schools that hope to perpetuate the myth that the ego-I is immortal,
and that once you peel off a long list of terrible things that have been done
to it to make it forget this, or at least not employ it, that it will now and
fully and forever on be a recovered immortal. But please to know that this
will not deal the death blow to these schools: never has, and never will.
Because, dear friends, nobody on an ongoing basis desires to be the
Truth, the whole Truth, and nothing but the Truth, since the Truth ain't
anything, and it's just not that much fun -- it's not even interesting. It
won't even improve your stats. Why? because it isn't anything -- it's
nothing. However, know that underneath it all (or wherever) what you really
are isn't anything and hasn't any name and can't be fixed or unfixed -- and
so, long live the Lie, which we should all come to cherish and enjoy, since
it's the only thing that can keep us going, and most of us resist having this
lie exposed with a ferocity that is most amazing, but understandable, since
our very survival as the "I" we wish to believe we are depends on the
undamaged maintenance of the aforementioned.
The Truth, you as the Truth, is no friend of the self you're being or
the existence you'd like to continue perceiving. So what about folks who
have run into this experience? Well, fortunately or unfortunately, places
like the C of S are not set up to have people obtain this result, and if they
do, it essentially goes unacknowledged, and usually in conspiracy with the
resultee everything possible is done to restore the guy to some semblance of
the customerhood he possessed before this unexpected result.
If the guy is lucky, he'll be able to get enough of the lie back in
place to continue to make some sort of life for himself from then on and
spend lots of money aiming for further but safer results.
If he's unlucky and the gods are unkind, he may retain his sense of
being the Truth for some time to come, which thereafter might make the world
and human existence look something like TV cartoons for very small children
-- and by the way, that's not a very bad result! He or she might become the
sort of person who it's hard to convince that the world's a terrible place
and we must fix it. Or such a person might have recovered the ability to be
the Truth or be the Lie at will, now and perhaps forever. I wouldn't know,
since anything I can possibly say about the real truth with words ain't it.
My hope in writing this is that (a) it will act as an acknowledgment
to understandings that lots of folks already possess, and (b) that it might
serve as a possible guide as to just what excursions you may or may not wish
to take on the road to, or away from, Truth.
To some degree it's a recipe for mass murder, but heck, that's normal
op on this planet. L. Ron at his best always recommended that you process
toward the game, toward the problem, toward the lie, not toward the truth,
and for very good reason. Hail to the Lie! and long live the warning!
All the best and all the worst --
Phil